Diablo 3 Hands-On At Pax East

Steve Tyminski lives in the great state of New Jersey and is a huge sports fan, especially the Devils/Mets/Jets. He went to college for Criminal Justice and History and has journalism experience. Been a Nintendo Guy for a long as he can remember and grew up with the Mario Brothers. His sense of humor comes out in his writing. Twitter-Follow at https://twitter.com/TumsST

 Published March 15, 2017 7:20 PM

They nailed the whole blood and death thing!

I was able to swing by the Diablo III event in the Westin Hotel next door to the Boston Convention Center for Pax East and like most Blizzard events, it didn’t disappoint. Blizzard was at Pax East to show off one thing and that one thing was the Necromancer. Let’s get right into it!

The Necromancer, who is female, will have a dark magic theme to her. In addition to the dark magic, she will also have many pets and the rock star vibe going on. Think of Gene Simmons from kiss with magical powers and you have yourself the Necromancer.

She will also have the blood and death feel to her as well but there won’t be poison, that’s what the Witch Doctor is for. If you want poison, don’t use the Necromancer. She will have two-handed weapons as well as one-handed weapons so you’ll have to practice and find which ones you’re comfortable with and use those.

The Necromancer will also come with some new different attacks as well. Grim Scythe is a group attack that will give you essence to survive. Another attack, Blood Nova, uses blood to attack your enemies but this time blood uses health.

Health could be considered a resource in Diablo III but it can be replenished so easily that you really don’t need to worry about blood depletion too much. So much so that another attack has you summoning a Blood Golem, which is an ally made of blood. Devour and Leech are two attacks that can regain health. Devour heels blood and is a corpse skill and Leech can recover health from cursed monsters/enemies.

The controls on the computer are really responsive and quick. Nothing seemed to lag/button not respond to being pushed. Diablo III is a point and click attacking style game like other Diablo games. The screen is bright and the graphics look great.

The enemies come at you with everything that they have but they don’t re-spawn too fast. That way, you at least get to catch your breath and get to look at the screen to see what’s going on. Blood Wave doesn’t drain as much blood/health as I thought it would. Since the other attacks can regain health, you can pretty much go to town on the blood attacks.

The developers mentioned that the test run for Diablo III would be longer than usual compared to previous games because they want it to be the best it can be. Also, they wanted the Necromancer to feel familiar to you and different at the same time. It will be interesting to see how the fans take to the Necromancer but they will be in for a real treat!